Professor
recounts Puvunga history
By Vince Scott
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
The passionate discussion of Puvunga and Native American history in the Southern
California area is a robust discourse that lay bare the dignity, humanity and
a heart felt hope for the future of the Tongva Nation and Cal State Long Beach,
according to Professor Cindi Alvitre.
“ This area should be a national ceremonial place for all Native Americans,” Alvitre
said.
She said Puvunga should be on par with Mecca as a place where all Native Americans
would have a national place of spiritual worship.
A lecturer of American Indian studies at CSULB and a member of the world arts
and cultures department at UCLA, Alvitre has been a cultural and social activist
for many years, battling social injustice with the likes of Kwume Ture (Stockely
Carmichael), and Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigo Berta Menchu. Her feelings about
Puvunga can be characterized as a missed opportunity for the university and the
surrounding community.
“ This is a great opportunity to teach our children, to make kids aware—to
have some type of convergence with the scholastic, the spirit and sense of community,” Alvitre
said.
Although Native Americans have been buried on the grounds, Puvunga is not strictly
a burial site.
“ This is a sacred center that’s filled with ceremony and prayer,” Alvitre
said.
There are christenings and solstice gatherings with singing by people of all
faiths.
“ What a better place for children to hear stories and to feel the love
in life,” Alvitre said.
She said during a conflict over the site in the early ’90s the Tongva people
were interrogated by attorneys hired by the school.
“ Our people were made to prove who we were like we invented the tale,
like anyone could actually prove being a direct descendant to someone after hundreds
of years, especially given the history of our treatment in this country,” Alvitre
said.
Alvitre personally knows about the cultural ties of Pugunva.
“ My grandfather delivered hay to the Bixby Ranch and never spoke above
a whisper
as a sign of respect when he transverse these grounds,” she said.
She related the story of Wiyot and Chinigchinich and beginning of the Tongva
spiritual history, which took place at this very site.
“ It’s not right that we should have to constantly renegotiate who
we are,” she said.
Alvitre considered the early ’90s administration as being greatly concerned
with economic development, an attack the Tongva were able to resist because of
people like Alvitre’s mother, father and others who slept and ate right
under the trees to ward off the bulldozers and demolition of the grounds by the
administration. President Robert C. Maxson promised no further development as
long as he was president to end the conflict, and Puvunga remains listed on the
National Register of Historic Places.
Alvitre does not seem overly concerned about any new development because of the
incoming president, who is not bound by Maxson’s promise.
“ It’s his job to know all the facts, to find out whats going on,
to hear all sides. I’m sure at some point I or some folks from my department
will be meeting with Alexander, if they haven’t done so yet,” she
said.
She said she is more concerned about enriching the lives of students and the
community.
“ We need to find new strategies that we can teach our kids to help solve
our social ills and Puvunga could be the centerpiece for that at
CSULB,” she said. “That’s how I teach, I don’t stand
in front of the class constantly lecturing, giving multiple choice tests. I send
my students out to collect history, to own it, become a part of it, to see where
they fit in that history.”
Alvitre said the Native American population in Southern California is the largest
in the nation. The Tongva traditions have been handed down through the generations
even if they are a group of people with no land.
“ These are not mere customs we are concerned with, regarding these 23
acres, customs die out, these are traditions, traditions remain and are celebrated
for generations.”
|
